Several Texas women suing the state over what they say are deeply confusing restrictions shared their harrowing stories in court on Wednesday.
AUSTIN, Texas — At a courthouse in Texas, the same state where the seed of nationwide abortion access was planted more than 50 years ago, a group of women once again stood up to share their gripping and emotional experiences of being denied abortion care.
One woman vomited on the stand as she recalled the stress of remaining pregnant for months while knowing her baby could never survive outside the womb. Many observers seated in the courtroom had tears in their eyes throughout the day.
Like others around the country, pregnant Texans have faced an intimidating legal landscape since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its decision in Roe v. Wade last summer. On Wednesday, several of the women currently suing the state of Texas over its severe abortion restrictions appeared at the Travis County Civil and Family Courthouse to oppose the state’s motion to dismiss their case.
Backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the group petitioned the court for an injunction against Texas abortion law, which forbids the procedure except in very narrow cases when the pregnant patient’s life is imminently at risk. The group ultimately aims to clarify the scope of the law, which went into effect shortly after Roe fell. Another state anti-abortion law gives regular citizens the ability to sue their neighbors over pregnancy termination.
Several of the women in the lawsuit, filed in March, faced similar diagnoses that meant their children would not develop a proper skull and brain tissue. They say their doctors were unable to provide adequate care, their hands tied by state law.
“I had to watch my baby suffer,” plaintiff Samantha Casiano said Wednesday, sobbing. She was not able to abort the pregnancy in Texas because the fetus still had a heartbeat, and instead carried the sick child to term earlier this year.
If you keep assuming that everyone with an identity you don’t understand or relate to is a dangerous enemy, then you have more in common with transphobes than you think you do.
You have a fear response, and instead of interrogating it, you try to justify it by framing it as a legitimate threat. You start trying to convince others you’re right because you’re insecure and can’t tolerate something you don’t understand.
You act like these “weird queers” care about nothing more than trying to have sex with you when no one actually gives a shit about you, they’re just trying to describe their experiences.
The report, written by Benjamin Wermund, cites an email that an unnamed trooper sent to superiors, which reads, in part: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”
The trooper also said that “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels have been deployed in the river in Eagle Pass to keep migrants from reaching land. […]
still so fucking weird to go from real life, where a cis man being flamboyant/effeminate/camp is judged like 70+% by how he speaks and carries himself, to online queer communities, which often seem to have no concept of male gender non-conformity that doesn’t involve wearing a skirt
i promise you, a man can be fem to the point of being in danger while wearing literally exactly the same thing as a hypermasculine guy. a boring basic black suit. a t shirt and jeans. a UNIFORM. gender conformity is not only about what you wear
None of you have watched that heartbreaking scene in The Birdcage where Albert gives up wearing everything he likes to try and blend in for their son’s conservative prospective in-laws and is so awkward and uncomfortable that no one says much until finally he says, defeated, “I know what you’re thinking - dressed like this, I’m even more obvious, aren’t I?” and it shows.
Here, have your queer heart broken:
This is what I’m talking about. This is still literally how it is in most places in the Midwest if you’re trying to “pass” for straight/cis/whatever.
I cannot begin to describe how hard I cried when I saw this scene the first time and how confused my conservative family was as to why I was crying.
It’s so funny how literally the way a man holds his wrists is an indication of femininity but also people think it’s all about makeup and clothing. But we’re also at a point that if you have a suit that is any color other than black, dark grey, or navy, it’s flamboyant.
Men’s sartorial stylings are so rigidly controlled it’s painful. Tim Gunn here is at the very absolute bleeding edge of “acceptably masculine” here for most cishet men, just for some noticible stripes, patterns, and purple, and that’s before he even moves. This is how restricted it is.
But Trixie Mattel (out of drag here) wearing standard masculine garb is could still be deemed unacceptably feminine for body language alone.
This is why we talk about “toxic masculinity” – the idea that any expression of emotion besides anger or even wearing colorful clothes is non-masculine and therefore restricted is horrifying. It sucks! Men should be allowed to express themselves outside of a tiny box of acceptable behavior, because they’re, y'know, people, and people have a wide range of expression in the way they like to look and move and act.
I honestly feel like it’s gotten worse over the last couple decades, too. If you look at men’s fashions from the 70s and even into the 80s, there’s a lot of style choices that look pretty cringe to us, but…. you also see a lot more color and pattern in suits than you do now. I’m not sure when this started to shift, or if it’s tied in to the increasing lack of color in all consumer products, but it sucks.
WGA’s asking people interested in all the tree law fun to also sign this petition about a god damned bitch of an unsatisfactory situation on another street on the Same FUCKING lot. NBC Universal (whose CEO is Mike Cavanagh just btw in case Ron Pearlman is listening) has started a construction project that completely removed the sidewalks from five different gates, in two cases forcing pedestrians to literally walk into oncoming traffic. In addition to being an ADA violation, it’s just flat out despicably evil of them and WGA’s asking for public support on this issue.
Can you link where you saw the WGA asking people to sign this?
Fair question! Sure thing! Legit great instinct to make sure! Here’s the tweet I got it from:
ALT
It’s both described and linked so that you can be sure it’s the real deal, and if you click through you can see it’s in response to Kenneth Mejia’s tweet about investigating Universal for the Tree Law stuff, hence the specific connection I cite at the start of the post
Today, members work in all forms of live theater, motion picture and television production, trade shows and exhibitions, television broadcasting, and concerts as well as the equipment and construction shops that support all these areas of the entertainment industry.
Before Drescher spoke to CBS News, the [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP)] said the SAG-AFTRA union has mischaracterized negotiations and made the actors an offer. Drescher didn’t go into details of that offer when asked about the specifics, instead saying that going on strike is a “major deal.”
“Why would we go on strike if we were offered such an incredible deal? It doesn’t make sense,” Drescher said. “We’re not making $78,000 a day, like the CEOs of these companies. So it’s insulting for them to imply that we’re being kind of spoiled brats, when … working people … just want to pay the rent and put food on the table.”
“They want to squeeze blood from a rock because all they’re interested in is showing their shareholders how much money they’re making and not losing,” she said, adding that many union members are struggling to even meet minimum requirements for health insurance.
Being skinny ruined my life. If you’re thin and think to yourself, “why don’t fat people just lose weight?” Please read this
I was the “ideal fat” in the sense that I did everything skinny people wanted me to do. I tried every diet in the book. I exercised regularly. I worked with doctors and dietitians to figure out the best way to lose weight. But nothing worked. I did everything “right” to lose weight, and my weight stayed the same
But the thin people in my life kept telling me that I wouldn’t be happy, attractive, healthy, etc. until I lost weight. So, heartbroken, I came to the conclusion that anorexia was the only option left. It felt safer than bariatric surgery, and was obviously much more affordable
I became the perfect anorexic. 700 cal a day or less, except once a week I allowed myself 1400 cal. For reference, my body required at least 2800 to maintain weight, and at least 1800 to keep my organs and stuff fully functioning. Still, 700 a day, I persisted because everyone in my life told me weight loss was all that mattered. If dieting didn’t work, anorexia had to
And it did. My weight dropped all the way down to 110 pounds. I was skinny - underweight, even - in all sense of the word. The people in my life saw it as a miracle. The ultimate success story. My mother, my “friends,” my doctors, they all congratulated me on my accomplishment
When I confessed my eating disorder to my doctor, he told me, “that’s not the best way to go about it, but I’m glad you lost the weight.” My mother took pictures of me and sent them to relatives to brag
Okay, great. I was skinny. I did what I set out to do. But there were severe consequences
The most obvious was my joint pain doubled, maybe even tripled, to the point that I couldn’t leave the house without a wheelchair
I also developed several health complications, including fatty liver disease and extremely painful GERD. I had to see a handful of specialists and get an endoscopy because of severe stomach pain
My partner, who was the only person who saw my weight loss for what it was (a horrible thing that only happened because of an eating disorder), convinced me to enter a recovery program
For nearly a year, I relearned how to feed myself. I ate everything I was told to eat, nothing more and nothing less. My diet was 100% in the hands of somebody else
And I gained back every pound I has lost. All of the work to become thin went right out the window. It was proven to me that thinness and health were incompatible with my body. If I wanted to be thin, I had to forgo my physical and mental well-being. And vise-versa
Prior to the anorexia, I never once struggled with binge eating. I was naturally an intuitive eater, and I did a good job of having a well rounded diet. After the anorexia, after recovery, I developed a binge eating disorder. I had spent so long starving myself, that my brain and body got stuck in survival mode, desperate to consume any and all calories out of fear that I might starve again. To this day I struggle with binge eating
I did everything thin people wanted of me. I dieted. I exercised. And when all else failed, I starved myself. Now I have liver disease, stomach issues, and BED. Not to mention the loads of mental issues that accumulated as a result of my weight loss journey. During the throes of my anorexia, I had to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation
When you tell fat people to “just lose weight” you are suggesting they give themselves illnesses for which treatments are not always effective. You are asking fat people to destroy their stomachs and livers. When a fat person loses so much weight that they become skinny, they are likely giving up so much of their health in efforts to be treated like a human being
If you’re thin, do your part. Treat fat people like people before we tear our bodies apart
I never had to go into recovery, but I was close. I realized that my family and friends were cheering my ED on, with the exception of my mom, who was shocked at my visible spine and ribs. I was not going to find help outside of myself, just more shame and degradation and fear of being fat and being treated as worthless again. I knew I was going to die if I kept on what I was doing (at the time, eating one meal every three days).
Then I read Gina Kolata’s Rethinking Thin, stumbled across the Fatosphere (Shapely Prose and Junkfood Science…anyone remember those blogs?), and I stopped dieting for good. I bounced up back to my old weight in 18 months and have stayed there ever since. My body really, really wants to be fat. I didn’t want to battle it, anymore. I wasn’t going to win, and I had better things to accomplish with my time and effort.
I lost a lot of thin privilege, a shocking amount, in an incredibly short period of time. You can’t ever convince me there isn’t thin privilege. I was treated like a completely different person practically overnight. It made me–still makes me–incredibly sad. Fat people are the same people they’d be if they were thin.
Thin people, you would be the same, if you were fat. Do you think you’d deserve the derision you pile on fat people if you woke up fat, tomorrow? You might. Side effects of medications, post-pregnancy body changes, accidents that reduce mobility, illness, and aging can all result in weight gain. Wouldn’t you like to be treated like a human being worthy of good medical care, professional respect, romantic value, and basic dignity?
Treat fat people well: because we deserve it, because you might be in our place someday, and because it might save a life.
House Republicans on Wednesday advanced an appropriations bill for federal environmental agencies that would boost development of the same fossil fuels driving the myriad disasters that have ravaged the Northern Hemisphere this year.
The legislation includes sweeping funding cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and the White House’s Council of Environmental Quality. It would mandate numerous additional oil and gas lease sales, both on- and offshore, and would advance mining development, including in an area near Minnesota’s iconic Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness where the Biden administration has banned such extraction.
The legislation would also torpedo and stonewall protections for wild animals, and would rescind more than $9 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law that Democrats passed last year.
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